Battlefield 1 Update Notes – They Shall Not Pass Update

The Battlefield 1 They Shall Not Pass release is not only about the French Army, the 4 all-new maps, new weapons, and other great content. The update containing the expansion also comes with various gameplay improvements for all players – not just those with access to Battlefield 1 They Shall Not Pass. Below you’ll find some of the highlights from the update’s improvements.

Party Leader Feature
Every party will now have a party leader, usually the party creator, identified by a star. The party leader is in charge of joining a multiplayer game for the party. All other party members will be notified when the party leader has found a game. A normal party member can still join a multiplayer session but other party members will not get notified for it.

Grenade Changes
As part of an ongoing effort to address excessive use of explosive gadgets and grenades, we changed the way grenades resupply for this release. The goal for these changes is to reduce the amount of grenades available while getting constantly resupplied, as it is common in choke points, without making resupplies unnecessarily long in other gameplay. Similar to some gadgets, all grenades slowly resupply when out of ammo. This resupply is greatly sped up when near an ammo crate.

User Interface
Emblem Reporting: In addition to the End of Round scoreboard, reporting emblems is now possible to do from the in-game scoreboard as well.

Notifications: The previous mid screen popup notification system has been replaced with a new notification system showing notifications in the upper left corner of the screen instead. This improvement has also solved a number of popup related issues.

New melee weapons in Puzzles screen: There are now three new melee weapons to complete with puzzle pieces gained in Battlepacks.

BATTLEFIELD 1 THEY SHALL NOT PASS UPDATE NOTES
Welcome to the first of four themed digital expansion packs for Battlefield 1. With “They Shall Not Pass” we are introducing one of the most notable forces of World War 1: The French in their ferocious defense of their country. It will bring a diverse gameplay experience with close quarter infantry skirmishes underground alongside large scale vehicular warfare amongst rolling hills in the French countryside.

The expansion pack and update contains:

• 4 new maps with big contrasts
• 2 new immersive Operations
• The French Army
• 1 New elite class – The Trench Raider
• 1 new Assault Tank
• 1 new Behemoth – The super-sized tank “Char 2C”
• 6 new unlockable Primary weapons
• 4 new melee weapons
• 1 new game mode – Frontlines
• A new type of skins in Battlepacks
• New melee puzzles in Battlepacks
• Play as party improvements – Party Leader

Note: The Battlefield 1 They Shall Not Pass update is a required download for all Battlefield 1 players. This has several benefits, including that players who don’t yet own the expansion will be able to watch Battlefield 1 They Shall Not Pass matches through Spectator Mode.

NEW MAPS

Verdun Heights
Enter an intense infantry-only map capturing the action of the opening barrage of the Battle of Verdun which created massive forest fires with players having to fight for domination. It is an uphill battle towards the massive fortresses of Verdun. The artillery never stops, prepare to enter hell!

Fort De Vaux
This is an intense infantry-only map capturing the action outside and inside of Fort de Vaux. This was the first big engagement inside a fort during World War 1 and takes place in the dark underworld of Fort de Vaux. There is a maze of dark galleries and wet stone corridors where French and German soldiers fight ferociously with grenades, guns, bayonets and flamethrowers.

Soissons
Here you will see players take part in one of the biggest tank assaults of World War 1 with the French 10th army moving to take back Soissons using their powerful St. Chamond tanks. It takes place in the early hours of a hot summer day with planes, tanks and infantry clashing in the beautiful French countryside. Only the thunderstorm is louder than the war.

Rupture
This map sees a maze of dead tank wrecks providing a fertile ground for ambushes. This leads to a dire need from the French army to capture key bridges across the Aisne river and in to battlefields where poppies grow over rusty wrecks from previous tank battles. As the sun sets over Fontenoy, the battle wakes up.

NEW OPERATIONS

Devil’s Anvil
Engage in this infantry focused Operation taking place on Verdun Heights and Fort De Vaux. Fight your way up the fiery inferno and progress down underground to secure the victory. Make sure you let the Trench Raider lead the way and strike fear in your opponent’s hearts as he gets up close and personal with his raider club.

Beyond The Marne
Start your engines. In Beyond the Marne players will engage in vehicular warfare across the Soissons and Rupture maps. Use the size of these maps to take control over the battlefield and wreak havoc on your opponents with the new Char 2C super-sized tank Behemoth as the sound of its menacing engines approaches the battle.

The French Army
Hardened and fearless, the French Army joins the fight in Battlefield 1 They Shall Not Pass. Don the faction’s characteristic blue uniform, and participate in the brutal defense of your homeland. The French Army has the classic Battlefield classes of Assault, Support, Medic and Scout. In addition to the Tanker, Pilot and Cavalry Vehicle Kits and the Sentry, Tank Hunter and Flame Trooper Elite Classes. There is also the new Trench Raider Elite Class.

The Trench Raider
Like our other Elite Classes, the Trench Raider, is a pick-up kit available being introduced in Battlefield 1 They Shall Not Pass. It is inspired by the heavily armored French Grenadiers with its body armor providing increased resistance to incoming damage. The Trench Raider Elite Class has melee as a primary weapon, several types of grenades and a sidearm for non-close combat engagement.

The Assault Tank – St Chammond
The brand new St Chammond tank introduces a new class of tanks into the land vehicle mix – the Assault Tank. It is a fast, long & low profile tank featuring multiple machinegun positions in addition to the powerful 75mm main gun. This new tank comes with 3 new packages: Field Assault, Gas Assault & Standoff Assault. Each package introduces a brand new feature to vehicle gameplay. First, the Field Assault package introduces the Pigeon Carrier Artillery. Echoing BF1’s campaign, the driver can release a pigeon that will call friendly artillery to your position. A dangerous move that can be used to your advantage in desperate situations. The Gas Assault package is equipped with a unique delayed fuse high explosive shell in addition to both close- and long-range gas abilities. Finally, the Standoff Assault package introduces the Spotting Searchlight that will spot ranged targets for its crew and friendly forces nearby. The Searchlight will also temporarily blind nearby enemy soldiers.

The Behemoth – Char 2C
Spawn into the Char 2C tank and control an epic new behemoth. This super-heavy beast may turn the tide of the entire battle. This powerful behemoth is an extreme threat to enemy vehicles, as it will destroy any armored vehicle in 2 or 3 hits! As an infantry you are somewhat safer unless you are in range of its 3 machinegun positions or the powerful rear-mounted auto cannon. Agility is one thing this behemoth lacks and clever enemies will stay in its blind spots. The front and the rear cannons have limited traverse; however, their operator have unique viewports through a rotating metal slit canopy that give them a very clear view of the battlefield.

NEW WEAPONS

All the new weapons in They Shall Not Pass can be acquired via the new Weapon Assignments, 12 in total. An Assignment consists of one or two tasks that can be done independently. The tasks usually highlight a team play action (such as reviving) and a weapon that has not been highlighted enough in the past (such as the slug shotgun for example).

Ribeyrolles SMG

RSC 1917 Single Action Rifle
• Factory
• Optical

Chauchat LMG
• Low Weight
• Telescopic

Lebel Model 1886 Bolt Action Rifle
• Infantry
• Sniper

Sjögren Inertial Shotgun

Cogwheel Club Melee Weapon

Nail Knife Melee Weapon

Trench Fleur Melee Weapon

Mle 1903 Extended Tanker Carbine

NEW MELEE WEAPONS
• Cogwheel Club
• Nail Knife
• Trench Fleur

The Assignments for these are intentionally more difficult as the new weapons awarded are variants of existing melee weapons that provide the same functionality. Melee weapon connoisseurs will appreciate the challenge and the change to wield something unique on the battlefield.

In addition, the Trench Raider Elite Class will have its own unique Raider Club primary melee weapon.

NEW GAME MODE – FRONTLINES
This is a 32 player mode that is a tug-of-war with the front line moving in both directions. We see it as having a fluid transition from classic Battlefield modes, Conquest into Rush, and vice versa.

Both teams fight for one flag at a time and when this objective is captured the action moves on to the next. Capture the enemy’s HQ control point and the game turns into a Rush-style section where telegraph posts need to be attacked or defended.

NEW BATTLEPACK FEATURES
We are introducing a new French themed style of weapon skins for the new weapons. It comes in the same rarity as the weapon skins for the standard weapons; Special, Distinguished and Legendary. We are also adding 3 new melee weapon puzzles:

SCRAP EXCHANGE
In short, the Scrap Exchange will let the player exchange their Scraps for Battlepack items. The Scrap Exchange will offer a few selected items available every Battlepack revision, with various rarities and Scrap prices. These items will rotate together with Battlepack Revisions, so the offers are time limited.

GAME IMPROVEMENTS

Weapons and Gadgets:
As part of an ongoing effort to address excessive use of explosive gadgets and grenades, we changed the way grenades resupply for this release. The goal for these changes is to reduce the amount of grenades available while getting constantly resupplied, as it is common in choke points, without making resupplies unnecessarily long in other gameplay.

Similar to some gadgets, all grenades slowly resupply when out of ammo. This resupply is greatly sped up when near an ammo crate.

These changes are subject to tweaking in future releases. We are looking to expanding this system to more gadgets in the future.

MG 08/15
• Decreased horizontal recoil from 0.7 to 0.3
• Full accuracy is reached one shot earlier
• Fixed bad reload timers on M1911 Extended:
• Tactical reload time increased from 1.4 to 1.6 s
• Empty reload time increased from 2.3 to 2.6 s
• Reload threshold reduced from 1.1 to 0.78
• Fixed staged reload timers
• Fixed an issue where the MG 08/15 would overheat much faster on PS4 and XB1 than on PC and set the new overheat threshold to 67 bullets
• PS4: Fixed an issue where the MG 08/15 was overheating too fast and set the new overheat threshold to 67 bullets
• Xbox One: Fixed an issue where the MG 08/15 was overheating too fast and set the new overheat threshold to 67 bullets

M1903 EXPERIMENTAL
• Reduced rate of fire from 450 to 360
• Increased close range damage, allowing it to kill a healthy soldier with 4 hits within 16 meters
• Self-Loading Rifles and Pieper M1893:
• Made recoil decrease smoother
• Most recoil values were tweaked, but are not comparable to previous releases
• Updated the way the CONTROL value is calculated to better represent the amount of recoil that players have to compensate for
• Self-Loading Rifles
• Fixed an issue where spread would reset too quickly after firing
• Reduced base spread increase per shot of self-loading rifles from 0.25 to 0.2
• Decreased base spread decrease per second from 3.75 to 3
• Decreased the spread increase per shot bonus in ADS that Marksman, Sniper and Optical versions get to maintain the old effective spread increase per shot values of 0.125
• Added a small bonus to spread decrease per second for Marksman, Sniper and Optical versions
• Reduced the number of magazines carried by the M97 Trench Gun by 1

CROSSBOW
• The crossbow launcher now regenerates all its ammo even when not reloaded
• Increased auto replenish time from 15 to 25 seconds
• K bullets now resupply in 2 s rather than 5
• Reduced suppression by friendly gas and prevented coughing at low levels of gas suppression

GAME IMPROVEMENTS

VEHICLES:

AA CANNONS
• Removed blast and impact impulse to prevent them from pushing and rotating planes
• Reduced impact damage to planes by 50% for fighters and attack planes and by 40% for bombers
• Fixed an issue where players could get the crosshairs back after pressing E while zooming in a vehicle in Hardcore
• The bomber will no longer destroy certain structures when crashing in to them
• Fixed an issue with certain vehicle gunner seats where the ADS stopped working once the weapon has been overheated.
• Fixed an issue where the UI did not update correctly when using certain gunner seats in the Heavy Tank
• Fixed an issue where the Armored Car turret accuracy was off, it’s now aligned with the cross hair

A7V
• Reduced A7V flamethrower range from 44 to 24 meters to better match the VFX
• Reduced A7V flamethrower speed inheritance and velocity and increased time to live for more predictable behavior

GAME IMPROVEMENTS

USER INTERFACE:

EMBLEM REPORTING
In addition to the End of Round scoreboard, reporting emblems is now possible to do from the in-game scoreboard as well.

NOTIFICATIONS
The previous mid screen popup notification system has been replaced with a new notification system showing notifications in the upper left corner of the screen instead. This improvement has also solved a number of popup related issues.

UI IMPROVEMENTSRental servers:

• Added Behemoths and Full Magazine settings for use with Custom games
• Improved the kick reason when banning players
• Improved the Kick and Ban flows from the in-game admin
• Improved error message when losing network connectivity under certain conditions
• Rank icon for Hero Class is now displayed on the Weapons & Gadgets screen
• Server browser limit of how many servers to show has been increased
• Medals that are not taken are now shown as dimmed
• Time in Vehicles is now rounded to full minutes for vehicle stats
• Adjusted position of carousel arrow buttons on home to be less on top of the cards
• Class Rank progression is now shown on End of Round screen
• Speed-ups and streamlining of Battlepacks opening sequence
• PC: Various mouse UI focus improvements

UI BUG FIXES
• Fixed bug where the title could hang if losing network connectivity while matchmaking into an Operation
• Navigating Battlepacks on Loading screen after entering a second time
• Issue with navigating BF4 assignments from BF1
• Rare occurrence where a number would be shown instead of game server name in the server browser
• Utilizing $ in server filters now works correctly
• Rare crash when watching video in the UI for many hours
• Favorite star can now be seen when the favorite server is selected in the server browser
• Fixed hang issue when loosing connectivity on “Get Battlepacks” screen
• Battlepacks shortcut now updates correctly on home screen
• Removed incorrect progress bars from vehicle stats
• Disabled order part of commo rose in Team Death Match
• Fixed text alignment EOR Map voting in the Arabic version of the game
• Fixed text alignment in the Customize Soldier screen in the Arabic version of the game
• Fixed several typos present in various Codex descriptions
• Fixed an issue that caused the player list in the deploy screen not to be selectable as intended
• Soldier inventory now properly displays on HUD when option is set to always show.
• Fixed an issue where the Squad XP boost percentage number is shown out of place in the Arabic version of the game
• Minor text changes to Achievements
• Fixed an issue where the “Party Join” notification would still be active after the notice would disappear
• Sidearm skins are now visible in the kill card
• Fixed an issue where there was overlapping Arabic text on the Medals screen
•The Grenade Crossbow now has a correct Codex image
• Players are now rewarded with corresponding Dog Tag for obtaining Service Stars with the Crossbow Launcher
• PC: The skip button for the Battlepacks unboxing sequence no longer appears twice when using a gamepad
• PC: Shoulder button indicators no longer appears and disappears when using a gamepad
• PS4: Fixed bug occurring if purchasing PS Plus while being invited to play

GAME IMPROVEMENTSGENERAL IMPROVEMENTS:

RSP
• Whole Magazine Reload. This setting will discard all remaining bullets in a clip when reloading.
• The Flare Gun is no longer available when choosing “Melee” only in the server configuration
• Reduced the intensity of the fog on Giant’s Shadow
• Fixed visual issue for the Medic’s syringe when used in certain indoor areas
• Fixed an issue where the “Corporal” trophy would not unlock when reaching the unlock criteria
• Ribbons now correctly award 500XP each
• Fixed an issue where the player would not get idle-kicked from the server when being idle
• Fixed an issue where the “War Bonds” trophy would not unlock when reaching the unlock criteria
• Fixed an issue where new installation of the game and its system files would fail due to missing files.
• Fixed an issue where the weapon firing animation becomes erratic when looking up or down.
• Fixed an issue where the wrong thumbnail image was being shown in the Map Vote screen for Ballroom Blitz
• Fixed an issue where it would rain inside of certain indoor areas on the Giant’s Shadow map
• Fixed an issue where the Heavy Tank exhaust pipes would not emit smoke when used operated
• Fixed an issue where the Torpedo Boat would not leave wreckage after being destroyed
• Fixed some clipping issues on the Giants Shadow map
• Fixed an issue where players sometimes would be quick matched into a server in the wrong region
• Medical Crates no longer explode when destroyed
• Fixed an issue where the weapon audio was muffled when spectating a player in first person
• Fixed an issue where the gas grenade VFX would not disappear if a soldier is killed by the gas
• Fixed an issue where a corrupted flag animation would be visible at the end of round sometimes
• Fixed an issue where a flag would appear to be floating in mid-air on Giant’s Shadow’s C objective.
• Fixed an issue where players would get stuck in a weird state if getting killed immediately following a revive
• Fixed an issue where players could see through the smoke clouds caused by smoke grenades while playing on low settings
• Fixed an issue where the screen would sometimes go dark suddenly after a bayonet charge
• You can now melee takedown opponents who are using stationary weapons/gadgets
• Players entering vehicles with Gas Mask equipped can now use the zoom in the vehicle gunner seats
• Improved messaging for spectators between battalions in Operations.
• Fixed an audio syncing issue with the Selbstladler 1906 when in the reload animation
• Added camera movement when firing and reload sound for vehicle mounted T-gewehr
• Added camera movement when firing for Vehicle HMG
• Removed Camera movement when driving on the MarkV
• Adjusted fire damage volumes across the level and reduced fire damage at B-Flag on Amiens